A statement 'our movement must be a safe place for women' by two UNISON activists, Marsha-Jane Thompson and Cath Elliot, has been posted online and has received the support of trade union activists, including leading figures.

Can an institution, like a human person, suffer from schizophrenia? Judging by the latest report from the International Monetary Fund it would certainly seem so. The condition involves a ‘breakdown of thought processes’, a ‘deficit of typical emotional responses’ and ‘disorganised thinking and speech.’ All these conditions are evident in the prescriptions by the IMF for the Irish people.

Millions have been waiting for this day, 8 April 2013. Margaret Thatcher will never be forgiven for the devastation that her Tory governments' policies wrought on working class communities in the 1980s - and is still being felt today. "I would suggest as a memorial to Mrs Thatcher that instead of the usual headstone or statue, a dance floor should be erected over her grave". This was proposed by a writer to the Observer paper from Durham, a former mining area, on the 30th anniversary of her coming to power.

Last week, fear and tension escalated on the Korean peninsula and far beyond, for very understandable reasons. North Korea is a quasi Stalinist regime of a peculiar kind and inherently unstable. The new ‘great leader’ - Kim Jon-un - appears to be even more unpredictable than his father when it comes to threats of sending nuclear weapons into the sky.

It is a human response to be sad when somebody dies. But many working class people will be celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher because of the absolutely destructive and long lasting effect she had on the lives of millions of working class and poor people.

Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore's announcement of the deferral of water charges from next January is prompted wholly by the party's fear of annihilation at the Local and Euro Parliament Elections in 2014. The absence of meters did not prevent the Labour / Fine Gael Coalition from introducing water charges in 1983 nor again their reintroduction in Dublin in 1994.

In the first week of March share prices surged on the New York Stock Exchange followed by other major exchanges. Does this signify a revival of the global capitalist economy? The Financial Times was quick to note that "little of investors’ exuberance is reflected in core economic data… The US and the UK ended the year stagnant; the eurozone and Japan in renewed recession; the emerging world slowing down". (Stock Markets Defy Economic Woes, 6 March)

In a highly significant development the Broad Left grouping has won 20 out of 25 seats in recent elections to the General Council of the Northern Ireland Public Sector Alliance (NIPSA), Northern Ireland’s largest union. Nine of the Broad Left’s seats were won by Socialist Party members.

At a book launch in early March Minister Pat Rabbitte apparently joked that he had spent another heavy day reducing the living standards of the Irish people! Despite being drenched in cynicism, for once he spoke the truth.